Child labour

Ahmed Zauoieioaiei - a man with far too many vowels in his name - is a bad smell that won't go away. I have no desire or interest in dicussing the rights or wrongs of what he has, has not, is lleged to have, is alleged to have not or might have done. Starting out your trip by flushing your passport down the dunny of a 747 is not a ploy guaranteed to get you a favourable place in my mind but the facts of the case can't matter because we are never going to know them. Several things, however, do fascinate me and get up my nose a bit. Even a Mickey Mouse country like the Peoples Republic of Aoteoroa has to have a secret service and it has to be both of those things - secret and a service. The headmistress made the first and (I sincerely hope) last statement I agree with yesterday. All this stuff has to remain secret. Transparency has no place where national security is allegedly at stake - and we just have no choice but to believe the spooks that it is. That's the secret bit. Service? The service is to the country as a whole of course. The Zauoieiaoi crap is an extreme example of the nonsense that results when you pursue the rights of the individual to the nth degree at the expense of the rights of society as a whole. Apparently his legal bill, which you will recall you and are are paying for, has reached $3.5 mil and counting. What price individual 'rights and freedoms'? Well in my book this bloke long ago priced himself out of the value for money department. Especially when a great glob of that money is spent on child labour. I thought the Marxist ratbags who would run this country were against sending little boys up chimneys to sweep them. How then can they condone the employment of Deborah Manning? This twelve year old doge must surely be contravening all sorts of youth employment regulations. She must have gone to Law School straight from kindy. Well we won't have to see her on the news this evening as it is too windy. She would be blown up Queen Street if she went out today without nanny.

Inquiries. Why does every untoward event in society have to have about three inquiries set up to look into the facts? There can only be one set of facts surrounding anything, so why multiple inquiries? This bought to light by an 'Independant internal inquiry' (eh?) into the death of that poor chap in Christchurch recently. The family (complete with 'victim genre' photograph) are claiming whitewash as the findings don't fall into line with what they want. No worries; there are two more Inquiries to go - the Coroner and the Health and Disability Commisioner. The family can take their pick from one of those and fully support the one they like and condemn the other. If they dislike both they will presumably appeal to someone for a fourth and knowing this country's propensity to pursue 'fairness' to the ends of the earth (and my pocket) they'll get it. Any air crash you get two or three investigations likewise with mishaps concerning the Police or government agency. Quantity is no substitute for quality. In the case of deaths there should be a Coroner's Inquiry and that is it. The coroner's system has been around for ever because it works. We don't need (and definitely don't need to pay for) all these Johnny Come Lately Boards of Investigation that do nothing but muddy the waters in the pursuit of fairness and transparency.

Tweet